The Wrecking Crew

CHAPTER 10

Dr. Nassiri sat alone in the command compartment of the submarine, eyes fixed on the radar screen. It was quite a different sensation to be on the surface again. The submarine rocked and bobbed in the gentle waves like any other midsized vessel, but there were no windows to anchor one to the horizon. A little nauseating, if one was completely honest with oneself.

None of them spoke during the interminable ascent through the water column, no cheers when they’d finally broken through the surface or opened the hatch. Battle fatigue set in, a kind of stillness in the soul made up of equal parts physical exhaustion and spiritual reflection. Dr. Nassiri found himself playing the day back like a movie reel, pointing out moments where he should have been faster, should have been cleverer, should have been killed but wasn’t.

He brushed his fingers across the name placard of the submarine.

Scorpion, it read.

Appropriate. Named for an arachnid that lies in wait for its prey, stinging when least expected. Perhaps this ship should not be renamed as was the Conqueror. What would be the point? There was no slipping this weapon through a shipping channel or canal with little more than a paint job, fake papers, and a forced smile.

Alexis worked alone in the engine room, trying to repair the batteries or at least isolate the damage. Dr. Nassiri found her technical explanations difficult to understand at best. At least he understood enough to get that the Scorpion was kind of like a hybrid car, using conventional diesel fuel on the surface, battery electricity while submerged.

Finding himself useless to her or Jonah, he occupied himself with the logs of the latest series of drone surveillance flights. Apparently Charles Bettencourt took his pirate neighbors to the west very seriously, taking great care to spy on each pirate harbor in turn.

One of the high-resolution aerial spy photos caught the doctor’s attention. At first, the harbor looked like all the rest — a single cut-out deep harbor guarded by two tall stone towers. Two rusting mother ships were nestled within, surrounded by a dozen fiberglass skiffs tied up by the bows. The compound was walled off with a corrugated steel fence. Apparently the pirates feared attack by land just as much as assault by sea. Several broken-down trucks dotted the interior of the wall. Whether they drove or not — in fact, whether anything in the compound worked — couldn’t be ascertained by the photograph alone.

Then he realized what had caught his surgeon’s eye.

One of these is not like the others, he thought. A dark shape in the far corner of the harbor couldn’t be ignored. It was somewhere between the size of a skiff and a mothership. Unlike the rusting white steel ships, this one was matte black.

Dr. Nassiri zoomed in with his fingers on the tablet computer. His first instinct was correct, this was no pirate ship. From the high-resolution surveillance photo he could make out the build of the ship, a futuristic ultra-lightweight trimaran carbon-fiber racing yacht. The name Horizon was painted on the side, but not recently. More interestingly, he recognized the distinctive crimson and gray logo of MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The name and the ship seemed familiar somehow, like he’d read about it in a newspaper or a magazine some long time ago. But then again, anything before about two weeks ago felt like it’d happened to a different man.

Dr. Nassiri realized he could see two shadowy figures on the back deck. They didn’t look like pirates, but then again, what did a pirate look like?

He zoomed in closer. Then closer again.

He could see now — the two figures were women, one young and one older, both with dark hair. The young one wore hers in a close-cropped, androgynous style. He scrolled over to the other woman… and then he saw her.

Dr. Nassiri climbed the boarding ladder and exited through the open hatch in the top of the conning tower. Jonah sat at a fold-out seat at the top, binoculars strung loosely around his neck, massive deli sandwich in hand he’d made himself, watching the African sun settle low over the horizon in a spectacular sunset. He nodded at Dr. Nassiri in acknowledgement, a friendlier gesture than the doctor had expected.

“Hey Doc,” said Jonah. The American split the sandwich in half and tried to hand it to Dr. Nassiri.

“No thank you,” the doctor said.“But that is very kind.”

“Take it,” said Jonah. “It’s what Americans do when somebody we care about dies. We feed each other. I’d give you a casserole, but all I have is this sandwich.”

“What type is it?” said Dr. Nassiri.

“It’s turkey,” said Jonah. “I don’t know if that’s your thing or not, but there’s no ham in it or whatever.”

Dr. Nassiri looked at Jonah quizzically for a moment, realizing the offer was completely genuine. He almost felt a little foolish for not taking it to start, especially once he realized how hungry he actually was.

“Why not?” said Dr. Nassiri. He smiled and accepted the sandwich. Both men ate in silence.

Jonah spoke first. “I’m sorry about your cousin,” he said. “I didn’t know him all that well, but he seemed like a decent enough guy.”

“Sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn’t,” admitted Dr. Nassiri. “Technically speaking, he was killed in the commission of a crime.”

“Nobody back home needs to know that.”

“There’s only so much of the truth that one can sanitize,” said Dr. Nassiri with a shrug.

“Doc, I know the timing sucks,” said Jonah. “But I have more bad news.”

“More than usual?” asked Dr. Nassiri.

The doctor had met cocky Jonah and warrior Jonah, but not this Jonah. Not sympathetic Jonah.

“Probably not by comparison to the last couple of days,” continued Jonah. “But I really need you to listen to me on this. I shouldn’t have yelled at you when all that shit was going down. I had no idea what you were doing — I thought you froze up.”

“It would have taken me too long to explain,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“Nice job, by the way. Hell, it was a masterful job. I thought he was fucking dead, bam-bam, done for. You stick your hands in him; get a needle in his vein and he’s up and walking around like fucking Lazarus. And you did it with me yelling in your ear the whole time. Couldn’t have made it any easier. Think we can trust him?”

“No. And he’s not your admirer right now.”

“Well, I’m not a big fan of his either. How’s he doing?”

“As good as to be expected. I have him on a full course of antibiotics. He’ll be getting all of his fluids and nutrition intravenously for some time, and as much supplemental oxygen as we can spare. It probably doesn’t help that we have him handcuffed him to the bunk, but I suppose that’s necessary.”

“He’d better be happy he’s alive. He and his crew put the hurt on us in a big way.”

“He is.”

They both took another bite of their shared sandwich at more or less the same time, leading to an awkward bout of synchronized chewing before anyone could speak.

“You’re not going to want to hear this,” said Jonah. “But we can’t go to the crash site, not now. Charles Bettencourt will have the area staked out; they probably already have drones on it, maybe even a ship. They’re going to want this submarine back.”

“You think they know we’ve taken the Scorpion?”

Jonah looked up, surprised the doctor didn’t challenge him on the decision to scrub the mission.

“The submarine chirped its coordinates and status back to Anconia Island seconds after we resurfaced,” said Jonah. “I cut it off, but not in time. They probably don’t have the full picture, but they know the Scorpion is on the water and not under their command.”

“And this limits our options to simply running,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“It does. But at least we have that Russian kid. He seems to know his way around the controls. I’m decent with a ship, but Jesus, I can’t make sense out of half of these systems. Same for Alexis, I’m sure. Submarine training’s not something you generally get in marine engineering school.”

Dr. Nassiri nodded. Even the yacht had been a total mystery to him, the idea of piloting a submarine seemed absurd at best, suicidal at worst. More silence, more eating. Jonah passed Dr. Nassiri a cold beer, something imported from Italy. When the cool amber liquid touched his lips, Dr. Nassiri almost felt human again.

“Where are we going?” asked Dr. Nassiri.

“Right now? Doesn’t matter, we’re just running. Just trying to get the fuck out of here without getting sunk or captured.”

“And after?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I feel like we’re sitting on a potential jackpot with this submarine. Even beat to shit, she’s probably worth, twenty, maybe thirty million to a motivated buyer. I don’t mind cutting you and Alexis in on it, couldn’t have done it without you. I can promise we’d get your family out of hock at the very least.”

“I’m not certain I have a home to go back to,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Not if any word of this gets out. Charles Bettencourt has deep pockets and a great deal of influence with the government of my country.”

“If we sell the sub to the Columbians, you could probably buy your way into whatever country you want. That being said, I’m not sure of a way to arrange it where we don’t all get cartel neckties in the process.”

“I’m not familiar with that aphorism.”

“Slit throats.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Nassiri. He took another drink.

“Maybe one of the smaller, unpopular militaries,” said Jonah. “Libya. Burma. I can put some feelers out. But one thing is certain — we can’t stay here.”

“Burma had a change in government,” said Dr. Nassiri. “As did Libya.”

“No shit?” Jonah looked up from his sandwich. “Did not know that. But what I do know is this — Anconia Island will be fully mobilized and looking for the Scorpion. We may be a needle in a haystack, but there’s going to be a lot of firepower looking for that needle.”

“I suppose it is incumbent upon us to make their efforts fruitless,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“Sure,” said Jonah, taking a sip of his beer. “It’s simple, but sometimes the old tricks are the best ones. We’ll steam south, close to the coast as we can, skirt Madagascar. Between the devil and the deep blue sea, best as we can. Surface all night, submerge all day. At least until we are far, far away from here.”

“I’m not certain there is any place in the world far enough from the influence of a man like Mr. Bettencourt,” mused Dr. Nassiri. He leaned back against the railing for a moment and grimaced. He felt the weight of the tablet computer in his hands. “Mr. Black — Jonah,” he began. “I’d like to show you something.”

“As long as it isn’t more bad news,” said Jonah, choosing to ignore his change in status from Mr. Blackwell to Jonah. He finished his sandwich and clapped the last of the crumbs off his hands.

Dr. Nassiri pressed the tablet into the American’s hands, showing him the bird’s eye image of the older woman he’d discovered in the reconnaissance photos.

“Who’s this?”

“It’s my mother,” said Dr. Nassiri, tears welling up in his eyes. “She’s alive.”

Jonah scowled as he zoomed out, discovering for himself her predicament in the midst of a pirate compound.

“When was this taken?”

“Two days ago.”

“Jesus, Doc…” Jonah shook his head.

“I don’t expect this to change anything,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Not after the way Youssef died. And I wouldn’t even entertain the notion of using any leverage on you to force a rescue. You’ve kept us alive, Jonah. And for that alone, your debt to me is more than repaid. I will fulfill as much of my obligation to you as I am able.”

“I don’t need you to cut on my face or tuck in my ears or whatever,” said Jonah, still scowling at the tablet computer. Dr. Nassiri saw something flickering across Jonah’s face, recognizing it for what it was — could the American actually be formulating a plan?

“Jonah—” began Dr. Nassiri again.

“I’m going to stop you there, Doc,” said Jonah. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I’m reasonably certain they tried to kill us because of your mother’s research. They wouldn’t have tried to sink the Fool’s Errand like that if the issue was over the stolen yacht.”

“It’s been bothering me as well. Why not simply detain us at Anconia Island?”

“Because we could still talk if we were detained. Tell the world what we were after. Killing us would close the loop permanently. We would have simply disappeared. They would have blamed it on Somali pirates and everyone would’ve believed them.”

“There’s no reason to suspect they won’t try again.”

“I’m assuming they will try again. But next time, I’m going to know why. Let’s just say they’ve aroused my curiosity.”

“You — you would do this? Assist me in rescuing my mother?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Jonah. “Losing Buzz hurt us. I know he was an idiot, but he was a reliable idiot. I’m in, but I need Alexis as engineer. If she’s not in, it’s no-can-do, full stop. We can’t risk an engine problem leaving us dead in the water.”

“Fair. More than fair.”

“I’d like to say I’m doing it for you.” Jonah tipped his head back and finished his beer. He chucked the empty over the side and into the ocean.

But he’s not, the doctor thought to himself, mentally finishing Jonah’s sentence. Finding my mother might provide the only leverage we’ll ever get.

As if summoned, Alexis popped her head out of the conning tower hatch, just in time to see the last rays of the sun dip beneath the horizon, rewarding the three observers with a thin flash of soft green as it disappeared.

“Got the autopilot workin’,” she said in a sing-song voice, laying on the Texan accent as thick as she could. “Soon we will be mother-fucking-fuck the fuck out of here.”

Dr. Nassiri and Jonah looked at each other.

“Uh oh,” she said. “What now?”